Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In the fourth watch of the night, the harvester arrives at the field. Whatever you planted, whatever you grew — the crop is ready to be taken.
When death comes and carries you away, no one can find where you've gone. The crying around you is real, but then — in an instant — you are a stranger to them all. The ones who called you theirs cannot hold you.
Think of the Lord. No one knows when that moment will come.
What you truly loved is what comes with you. You receive exactly what your heart was attached to.
Says Nanak: in the fourth watch of the night, the harvester has come for your field.
The field and the harvest
The final watch brings the most vivid image in the composition: lāvī ā'i-ā khet — "the Grim Reaper comes to the field." The soul's life is the crop. Death is the harvester. This is not metaphor designed to frighten — it is metaphor designed to make the stakes clear. A farmer who has planted all season expects the harvest. The question is: what grew?
"You become a stranger in an instant"
Khin meh bha'i-ā parā'i-ā — "in an instant, you become a stranger." One of the most arresting lines in Guru Nanak's Siree Raag. The moment death comes, the body that everyone has been calling "mine" — whose face has been kissed and whose name has been spoken with love — becomes something else entirely. The relationship of ownership dissolves in a breath. The very people who wept are gone from your awareness and you from theirs.
This is not nihilism. It is clarity. The temporary nature of every human connection is not a reason to stop loving — it is a reason to love more honestly, without the illusion of permanent possession.
"You obtain exactly what you longed for"
Sā'ī vasat parāpat ho'ī, jis si-o lā'i-ā het — "you obtain exactly that which you loved." This is the soul of the fourth watch. The harvest is determined by what you planted. What you were genuinely attached to — not what you claimed to love, but what you actually oriented your life around — that is what comes with you. The Name comes with you if the Name was your true attachment. If wealth was, that is what comes. The teaching does not elaborate on what comes after — it simply states the law: the inner is the harvest.
Connecting all four watches
The four watches together compose a complete human life — from womb to death — and at each stage, the same question recurs: where is your attention? The answer in each watch is different, but the question is the same. Guru Nanak is not asking for perfection at each stage. He is asking for awareness. The merchant who recognizes mid-journey that they've been trading in the wrong goods can still redirect. The fourth watch is a closing, but it is not a condemnation. It is a mirror.
*If death came tonight, what would it find you attached to — and would you be at peace with that answer?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI